


Can you hear me now?

by mindfluff



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9330437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindfluff/pseuds/mindfluff
Summary: Since they've come back from the road trip with the recon boys, Ty thinks something is up with Zane.  He's going to figure out what's wrong with his husband if its the last thing he does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There was a [post](http://abiroux.tumblr.com/post/143011770584/feship-zane-garret-totally-lost-some-of-his) on Tumblr about how Zane lost his hearing during Part & Parcel, and I thought it would make a cool ficlet. It took me forever to get around to it, but here it is.

    Ty looked at his husband from across the store with narrowed eyes.  He knew there was something going on with Zane, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on it yet.  It had been almost a full year since Sidewinder went on Eli’s road trip and in that time, Ty had noticed something was ... off with his husband.  He'd asked Zane as directly as he could - is everything all right, are you having any problems, is there something you want to tell me Garrett, is there something you _should_ tell me. Apparently he'd done it frequently enough that Zane had started making shit up whenever he asked.  So Ty had stopped and decided to focus  his skills of observation on his husband.

    Two weeks later and he still wasn't sure what the problem was.  Hell, he wasn't even positive there actually _was_ a problem at this point.  Ty sighed and grabbed another stack of books to shelve and stopped for a second to turn up the radio on the store's speakers.  He'd selected the country station today and Crash & Burn had come on.  He liked this song and since he was putting the children's books away, Zane would see him dancing and maybe they'd close the shop for lunch and head upstairs.

    Ty was surreptitiously watching Zane watch him and trying to decide if he'd stirred the pot enough when the door opened and a customer came in.  Zane was shooing a cat off a shelf and had his back to the door.  Since he took pride in greeting people as they came in, Ty found it odd when Zane didn't say anything to the woman who'd just walked in. 

    Cricket bopped Zane on the arm before jumping back down the floor where she belonged, and Ty saw Zane startle when he turned back around to front desk. 

    "Oh, I'm sorry," the woman apologized.  "I didn't mean to scare you!"

    Zane chuckled. "No, it's my fault, I was intent on keeping this little one out of mischief," he responded, picking Cricket up from where she was now trying to untie his shoes.  "I guess I need to put a bell on the door."

    Ty narrowed his eyes as he watched his husband lead the woman to the 'old favorites' section and make a couple of recommendations. The door wasn't that quiet that it needed a bell; Zane should have heard her coming in.  Maybe this was the clue he was looking for. 

    Ty spent the rest of the day testing Zane's ability to actually hear what he was doing.  He dropped books, snuck up behind him, tried starting a conversation without looking at him. 

    Over the next week, he'd determined Zane definitely had a hearing problem.  It seemed to be at its worst when there was too much background noise, or a certain pitch and especially kid's voices.  He'd noticed Zane subtly making sure Ty was to his right when they were out, and, when he thought Ty was in a different part of the store, kept his eye on the door at all times. 

    Once he'd decided he'd identified the problem, Ty spent a couple of days stewing over what to do about it.  Obviously Zane was trying to hide it from him, Ty just wasn't sure why.  He'd called Deuce to get his input but the only thing of value he'd said was to talk to his husband.  Ty had every intention of doing so, he just wasn't quite sure how to tactfully bring it up.  Zane had been getting a little sensitive about his age, and Ty _really_ didn't want to be relegated to the couch.

    When he hadn't figured out a good way to broach the topic, he settled for preemptively bribing his husband and took him out to Chiapparelli's for dinner.  When they were seated, Ty noticed Zane sat with his left to the body of the restaurant, even though that put his back to the door.  He'd been smooth about out it, teasingly pulling the chair out for Ty to sit, but now that Ty knew what he was looking for, he'd wondered how long Zane had been doing that.

    Ty kept the talk light while they placed their orders and ate dinner, and figured his husband was suitably buttered up by the time the cheesecake arrived.  Halfway through dessert Ty sprung the question on him with no warning.

    "Sooooo, when were you going to tell me you're having a problem hearing?" he asked.

    "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Zane asked in response.

    "I said, when were you going to tell me you can't hear?" Ty repeated.

    Zane looked up at him.  "What?"

    "Zane," Ty said, exasperation clear in his voice.  "When were you...You bastard!  Bad pun penalty!" he said, pointing his finger accusingly at Zane.  "That's just wrong, man."

    Zane chuckled and took another bite of cheesecake. 

    Ty narrowed his eyes and glared at him.  "When were you going to tell me?"

    Zane shrugged and gave Ty a small smile.  "I figured if I could hold out for a year or so, I'd be able to pass it off as aging."

    "What the fuck Garrett?" Ty snapped.  "How long has this been going on?"

    "I really noticed it during Eli's road trip," Zane answered.  "When we got back I made an appointment for a hearing test.  I've got moderate hearing loss in my left hear and mild loss in my right.  We figured it's a result of being blown up in Miami."

    Ty tried to keep his emotions from showing on his face as he processed this.  It hadn't gone the way he'd thought at all.  He had figured there would be a lot more bullying and arguing to make Zane admit he was having a problem, and another round of cajoling to make him see a doctor about it.

    “So you’ll go get hearing aids now?” Ty asked, jumping to the end of his imagined fight with Zane.

    “Actually, if we swing by the store on the way home, I’ll grab the set I’ve got,” Zane replied nonchalantly.

    “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Ty growled.

    “I said we can pick up the pair I have at the store on the way home,” Zane answered.

    “You mean to tell me that all this time you’ve playing deaf when you’ve had hearing aids all along?” Ty asked his voice low and dangerous.

    “Ty, I’m a retired FBI agent,” Zane said exasperatedly.  “I _still_ work for the CIA, and I own a retail store where I need to interact with people.  Of _course_ I’m going to use hearing aids for at least the times I’m alone.”

    Ty threw himself back into his chair.  He wanted to be mad, but Zane was at least being safe about his deception.  He still wasn’t going to let him off easy; Zane _had_ been hiding his problem from him in some misguided attempt to protect his feelings.

    “I still don’t know why you didn’t say anything to me,” he said petulantly.

    “Because you get a little crazy when you think there’s something wrong with me,” Zane answered, finishing his cheesecake.

    “I do not!” Ty protested.

    Zane chuckled.  “Really?  What about last winter when I sprained my ankle?” Zane reminded him.  “Normal people do not threaten others with a gun for not shoveling their sidewalks, and I swear to God you’d have carried me to the bathroom if you thought I’d let you.”

    Ty felt himself blush.  Of course he was worried, Zane was getting older and Ty knew _he_ couldn’t bounce back from injuries as fast as he was used to, so Zane certainly wouldn’t be able to either.  “Yeah, well you have a tendency to push it,” he answered grumpily.

    “Limping from the bed to bathroom does not count as ‘pushing it’ Ty,” Zane said with fond exasperation.

    “The doctor said you had to stay off it,” Ty protested.

    “Yeah, for like three days, not a week,” Zane reminded him.

    “Well, it takes longer for things to heal when you get older,” Ty answered back.

    “Ty, I’m forty-seven, not eighty-seven,” Zane replied.   He leaned over the table, closer to Ty. “And I’m still young enough to make you scream loud enough for me to hear without the hearing aids.”

    Ty sat in stunned silence for a heartbeat while Zane smirked at him.

    “Check please!” he hollered, grabbing his jacket and dragging a laughing Zane to the front to the restaurant with him.


End file.
